The invention described herein relates to a system and method for monitoring traffic between telephone networks, and more particularly to determining which termination telephone numbers are being employed as data connections.
Local exchange carriers (LEC""s) in large metropolitan areas can pay in the tens of millions of dollars per year for the ability to terminate intrastate calls to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). These payments are known as reciprocal compensation, and can be quite significant for the LECs. One type of traffic which may flow to the CLECs are data calls initiated by computer users wishing to establish a connection with a Internet service provider (ISP) with a termination telephone number which is serviced by a particular CLEC. In many cases, the connection time to termination telephone numbers which are being employed by ISPs may be very large. According to the formula for reciprocal compensation, connect time to a termination number serviced by a CLEC will effect the amount of fees payable by the LEC to the particular CLEC.
According to a recent ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Internet traffic was judged to be jurisdictionally mixed and appears to be largely interstate in nature. Noted in particular, were those calls that do not terminate at the local ISP""s local server, but continue to their ultimate destinations, specifically at websites that are often located in other states or countries. As a result, it was found that although some Internet traffic is intrastate, a substantial portion of the Internet traffic may be interstate and therefore subject to federal jurisdiction. In one view, if this type of traffic is subject to federal rather than local jurisdiction, it is then taken outside the realm of reciprocal compensation. As such, the ability to identify which termination telephone numbers serviced by CLECs are for establishing data connections, may have an affect on the amount of reciprocal compensation which is paid from one local exchange carrier to another.
The inventor has recognized that in order to identify termination telephone numbers which are acting as modem connections for ISPs or other means for establishing a data connection, certain characteristics of telephone calls to the termination number may be detected and measured. If enough characteristics of a particular call indicate that the destination number is being used as a data connection, certain confirmation processes may be performed to ultimately determine that this connection is a modem or it may be simply labeled as such.
Described herein is a system and apparatus for identifying terminating telephone numbers in a telecommunications network which are employed as a modem. More particularly, the system and apparatus provide the capability for one party such as a local exchange carrier (LEC) to determine terminating phone numbers serviced by a second party such as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) which are providing modem connection to a data network such as the Internet. The system described herein is configurable to analyze telephone traffic in both directions.
In a telecommunications network, monitoring may be performed at a point, such as a switch, where telephony traffic is being routed to a designated area. This monitoring may be performed to extract predetermined information with regards to calls placed to particular terminating telephone numbers within the designated area. Information gathered while monitoring over a predetermined period of time may be compiled such that selected information about particular terminating telephone number may be generated.
For example, in the situation where the telephone calls are being routed to terminating telephone numbers serviced in the designated area, individual file listings may be created for each terminating number to which a telephone call was successfully made. Other information which may be generated includes originating telephone number for the successful call, terminating telephone number for the successful call, call conversation minutes of use per successful call, as well as date of the successful call. This information may be gathered over the predetermined period of time, such as a week or a month, and compiled in the listing created for the particular terminating telephone number.
Once the information is gathered in the listing, it may then be compiled into the selected categories which may be further analyzed to make a determination as to whether the terminating telephone number is a data modem. The selected categories of information compiled may include, for each terminating telephone number, the total minutes of use (TMOU) over the predetermined period of time, an average hold time (AHT) for the successful calls over the first predetermined period of time, average minutes of use (AMOU) per originating caller over the first predetermined period of time as well as the total number of different callers which place calls to the termination telephone number during the first predetermined period of time (Ncallers).
The above compiled information in the different categories may then be compared against reference values in order to determine whether the terminating telephone number is being used as a modem connection. For example, if the TMOU for the termination telephone number is less than a predetermined value, a determination may then be made that the number is not being used as a modem connection. However, if the TMOU is greater than the predetermined value, further analysis may be performed to make a final determination. These determinations may include whether the AHT is above a predetermined value, the AMOU is above a predetermined value, as well if Ncallers is above a predetermined number. If one or more of these values meets a predetermined criteria, a determination may be then made that the terminating telephone number and make an absolute determination. As an additional step, a manual process may then be employed to physically call the terminating number in order to determine that this is so. An additional step which may be performed once a terminating telephone number is identified as a modern connection, is calculating the financial value of the time in which a connection was established to a particular terminating telephone number.
In one configuration of the invention, the system described herein may be employed in a SS7 telecommunications network. In such a network, calls to a particular CLEC are routed through a designated signal transfer point (STP). As such, the monitoring device may be incorporated in a service control point (SCP) which is in connection with the STP. Alternatively, the monitoring device may be a separate component connected to the STP. The modem identifier may further be in connection with this monitoring device or incorporated therein. The modem identifier described herein may be implemented on a computing device such as a network server or a personal computer.
Processing modules may be included in the modem identifier which provide for the extraction of information from calls routed through the STP, compilation of selected information with regards to the calls, and for the comparison of this selected information against predetermined reference values. The results of this analysis may then be provided through any number of output means which includes generation of a display on a computer screen as well as creation of hard and soft copies. Further, a processing module may also be included in the modem identifier system for making financial calculations as to connection time established with terminating telephone numbers which have been determined to be modem connections. This information may also be provided via the output means described above.